Improvement in vehicle-springs



I A. T. FREEMAN.

VEHICLE-SPRING. I

Patented :Feb. 22 18'76.

WM j M332 N. PETERS, PHOTO-L THOGRAPNER WASMNGT N AUSTIN T. FREEMAN, OF

PATENT QFFICE,

HERKIMER, NEW YORK.

IMPROVEMENT IN VEHlCLE-sPRlNGsi Specification forming part of LettersPatent No.1 73.719, dated February 22, 1876; application filed January24, 1876.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that 'I, AUSTIN T. FREE- MAN, of Herkimer, in the county ofHerkimer and State of New York, have invented a new and usefulImprovement in Springs for Carriage-Bodies and their Seats and I dohereby declare the following to he a full, clear, and exact descriptionof the'same, reference being bad to the accompanying drawings, forming apart of this specification, in which- Figure 1 represents a perspectiveview of myinventionapplied to a wagon body and axle, the spring beingshown open or expanded; and Fig. 2, a longitudinal vertical section ofthe same applied to the seat of a'carriage, showing the springdepressed.

The object of my invention is twofoldfirst, to provide a spring simplein construction, and capable of supporting itself under extremely heavyweights, in such a manner as to lessen the danger of breakage from too agreat pressure, and alsoto prevent the bumping orjarring motion which isusual when the ordinary springs are used, caused by the spring strikingsuddenly against .an unyielding or unresisting surface second, toprovide aspring constructed in such a manner as to retain the seat orcarriage-bed underneath which it is placed always in a positionhorizontally above it, whether the weight be in the center above thesprin g, or over either of the extreme ends thereof.

The nature ofmy invention consists in the combination and'arrangement ofone-half of an ordinary elliptical spring with a springbar and leversappliedunderneath the spring, as hereinafter setvforth.

In order that others skilled in the art may be enabled to make and usemy invention, I will now proceed to describe the same with reference tothe drawings.

A represents a spring, corresponding in form to the upper or under halfof the elliptically-shaped springs in ordinary use, and which is boltedfast at its center in the ordinary manner to the under side of thespring-bar B. This spring may be composed of as many leavesorrthicknesses of metalas is deemed necessary in order to give therequired degree of resistance, and so as to properly adapt it for use asa carriage body or seat spring, as the case may be. The spring-bar B isprovided upon its ends with downward projections or lugs B B, and to thelower ends'of these projections are pivoted at a a the outer ends oflevers G .O, the upper surfaces of which serve as bearings for the freeends of the spring A to rest upon. These levers are loosely joinedtogether at their inner ends by a pin, a, and

are pivoted near their respective centers, as shown at b and b, toguide-jaws O (),in such manner that their ends are capable of movingvertically up and down. The jaws G G, between which the levers arepivoted by the pins 1) b,'are firmly bolted or otherwise fastened to thesand-bar D, Fig. 1, of an axle-tree,

or, when applied to a carriage-seat, to a bed, 1), of a wagon orcarriage body, (shown in Fig. 2,) and the levers are thus held securefrom any danger of displacement and in order to have the inner ends ofthe levers capable of risingabove or descending below a horizontalplane, short slots (1 d are made in one of the levers and one of thejaws, 'as shown. -The joint a between the levers comes directly underthe cent-er of the spring A, and the ends of the spring bear upon thelevers at points outside their fulcra, and thus, when the weight uponthe carriage-body is great enough to bear down the spring, this Weightdepresses the outer ends of the lovers, and thereby forces up the innerends of the same until they meet the v word, the efi'ect of thearrangement shown and described is to keep the carriagebody orcarriage-seat in a position parallel, or nearly so,

with the axles, and also save the spring from being broken by unduestrain or weight. A spring constructed on the above plan could also beutilized for the purposes of a springbed, or for a railroad-car spring,as well as for carriages.

Having thus described my invention, what y claim, and desire to secureby Letters Patent, Witness my hand in the matter of my apis I rplicat-ion for patent for the above-described in- The carriage body 01'seat spring, consistvcntion this 8th day of January, A. D. 1876. ing ofthe spring-bar B, the levers O G, pivoted to the lugs 0f the spring-bar,and to jaws AUSTIN T. FREEMAN. G U, and the spring A, placed between theWitnesses:

spring-bar and the jaws, substantially as and R. O. WABBER,

for the purpose described. R. S. DOTY.

